Tendayi Kuumba & Greg Purnell, U.F.O: “The Mixtape,” A UFlyMothership Production
Official release: Wednesday, October 14th, 7pm ET.
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Dancer, singer, and songwriter, Tendayi Kuumba, and barber, visual artist, and music producer, Greg Purnell, are collaborators on an exciting new project entitled U.F.O: “The Mixtape.” This project is a collage of music, movement, images of current events, and futuristic projections.
The Mixtape was conceived by the duo as “a healing vibration for the time we’re in, presented in the form of an intergalactic radio show” with contributions from Courtney Cook, Jasmine Hearn, Angie Pittman, Samita Sinha, and Tatyana Tenenbaum, many of whom the duo have collaborated with in recent years at Danspace Project. They write, “This Mixtape is a vibe within a universal pause when we need it the most. A shoulder mountain to lean on, a zoom-verse with friends, a journey with sonic thoughts as the vehicle. A snapshot, a soundtrack, and call for new ways of healing beyond the moon.”
Earlier this summer, Danspace partnered with the Petronio Residency Center to host a week-long research residency where Kuumba and Purnell began creative development for UFO: “The Mixtape.”
Tendayi Kuumba made her Broadway debut in David Byrne’s acclaimed American Utopia, recently made into a film by Spike Lee, premiering on HBO October 17. She is a former member of Urban Bush Women and has toured her solo work in collaboration with musician Lenka Dusilova. She has also worked with Marjani Forté-Saunders, ASE Dance Theater Collective, & Axam Dance Theater Experience, Okwui Okpokwasili & Peter Born among many others. Greg Purnell is a Brooklyn-born and bred barber, visual artist, writer, music producer and “all around creative.” He has been featured in the 2015 BRIC Stoop Series Barbershop Stories: it’s all about hair and BRIC TV’s Brooklyn Made series. Other features include Afropunk, BAM, OkayAfrica and Nike collaborations, and I Don’t Camouflage by Aiko Tanaka. Together Kuumba and Purnell create music and performances as UFlyMothership, and co-founded the artistic lab, The Golden Ratio Project, in Brooklyn, NY.
U.F.O: "The Mixtape" was created, in part, with support from Danspace Project’s Commissioning Program and while in residence at Petronio Residency Center, which was a collaboration supported by the New York State DanceForce, a partnership program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. U.F.O: "The Mixtape" received additional support from the Jerome Foundation.